Handle with Care

Truck Moves Australia knows something about getting in the trenches with its customers.

The first major job performed by Truck Moves Australia involved moving hundreds of troop carriers from Melbourne to Darwin for a customer over a three-month period following a big fleet replenishment.

The drivers loved it, as Matt Whitnall, Truck Moves Australia Managing Director recalls, and the customer was impressed with his team’s project management skills, precision handling of the vehicles and reliability of service delivery.

Those same qualities undergird the business 30 years later. The company ethos is founded on safety, reliability and respect.

“Safety is a cornerstone for us. Our drivers are forbidden to sleep in the vehicle, they must stay in a motel,” says Matt.

“They are not allowed to drive before sunrise and not after sunset, and we run a company-wide digital training and awareness platform that questions and quizzes drivers every week on safety, fatigue and compliance.”

Drivers must actually ‘pass’ each section to complete the requirement, not unlike the steps of a driving test.

Truck Moves Australia drivers, it may come as no surprise, are the highest paid in the industry — by far, per the award (RTD 2010. MA000038).

In other words, every hour driving plus every hour travelling to or from a job is paid in full.

“There’s no shorting drivers to steal a buck here and there, or even worse and it’s hard to understand why drivers put up with being paid a cents per kilometre rate, whereby they are underpaid about 25 per cent on average compared to the legal minimum award — they shouldn’t stand for it,” says Matt.

“They are without doubt our most valuable assets and we make sure they are paid correctly as we pay overtime, tea money and every allowance as per the award, and are happy to do so for our drivers.”

Every hour, moreover, gets paid for travelling as well as driving. The adherence to these kinds of precepts commands respect among industry peers and, with it, reputational excellence for delivering an unmatched service in Australia.

“Reliability is where we are without peer,” Matt claims.

“Any vehicle anywhere, anytime is our longstanding priority goal. Same day pickup for next day delivery, depending on the distance.”

As far as its capabilities go, Truck Moves Australia can happily move single vehicles but have scale to move over 1,000 new vehicles each week nationwide.

Matt considers this an unparalleled amount of experience that cannot be replicated.

More recently, the business was tasked with some heavy peak demands.

Over a three-day timeframe, to cite one example, they moved over 600 new trucks.

This task was completed successfully. Another project, recalls Matt, involved 160 vehicles from a leading brand being moved in order to secure an ongoing supply contract for the customer’s customer.

“In effect we are often a secret service that gets the job done, ensures the deal happens smoothly and make our customer, invariably, look like the hero, which is just how we like it,” says Matt.

“The initial deployment of both Coles and Woolworths home delivery fleets a few years back was another example of how we integrate with multiple OEMs and multiple dealers and multiple body manufacturers to get a fleet rollout done.”

Each of those vehicles were moved about six times before the last mile into stores, equating to 700 vehicles multiplied by six moves each.

As part of the service provided by Truck Moves Australia it also handled project management, truck moves, truck storage as the body builder was often limited for space, then registering the vehicles and final hand over in most cases.

“The customers just simply couldn’t have met the deadlines imposed without our service,” he says.

Special projects are where the business shines.

There have been many hundreds of these over the years, most recently the promo tour of the new Australia Post electric Volvos before they were deployed into fleet.

Truck Moves was heavily involved there, in addition to the current campaign with the latest generation Fuso eCanter for a Melbourne dealer video, which actually features Truck Moves Australia drivers in the commercials.

One of Matt’s fondest memories over the years illustrates the variety of work the company is often engaged in.

It involved having to move 25 prime movers into a stadium where they were lined up, side-by-side, for a stunt in which Nicolas Cage would jump over them. The sequence in question, a night shoot on location in Melbourne, was for the movie Ghost Rider.

“The drivers loved the variety and did a fantastic professional job,” says Matt.

“More recently we have helped a leading truck and machinery auction house relocate over 100 heavy vehicles from an old site to a new site, with every type of truck you can imagine and as our drivers are average age 61, they can operate anything anywhere anytime so again the customer sees a huge logistical problem and we solve it without any hesitation.”

Matt adds, “No one else has that capability and depth of driver expertise.”

Truck Moves Australia pricing is based on aggregate data across a day.

A fixed cost is given so the customer knows upfront how much to budget for.

After that it’s up to Truck Moves Australia to make the driver complete enough moves to cover his pay plus a small margin for the business.

As a volume business, the pressure is on Truck Moves Australia to make it efficient for the customers at all times for the lowest price. That said, according to Matt there are few limits to their service which aside from high volume specialises in last minute deliveries. As a result, customer relationships are very strong and long lasting.

“We know our place in the new truck sales process, our portion of the truck getting from port or ex-factory all the way to the customer is important but small financially, so we maintain a ‘secret service’ mindset,” he says.

“That means we have become totally integrated but largely invisible and automatic for the truck seller.”

The business recently launched two new service offerings — truck registrations and truck storage. By broadening its service this way it has become even more of a turnkey operation.

Truck Moves Australia employs men and women from many backgrounds though there is strong representation from former police and emergency services, ex-army and plenty of drivers formerly from the freight sector who have experience operating roadtrains and, fuel and gas tankers.

“The top-level highest experience professional drivers are attracted to what we offer and how we operate,” says Matt.